Social groups: religious groups and communities Books

This is a mere effort to introduce the illustrious light of the family of Prophet Mohammad (SM) to the generation of the needy, a time period indigent of iman i.e. faith and understanding of Islam’s eventful Authentic history. The history outlined...

This study seeks to explain three models of network governance embedded in digital practices that the mainstream monotheistic religions-Judaism, Catholic Christianity, and Islam-have used to lead and manage the worldwide distribution of their local...

This book explores the complex relationship between the novel and identity in modern Arab culture against a backdrop of contemporary Egypt. It uses the example of the Egyptian novel to interrogate the root causes - religious, social, political,...

After the ceasefire, a group of architects and planners from the American University of Beirut formed the Reconstruction Unit to help in the recovery process and in rebuilding the lives of those affected by the 2006 war in Lebanon .Here, a series of case...

Buddhism has become a major religion in Canada over the last half-century. The 'ethnic Buddhism' associated with immigrant Asian people is the most important aspect, but there is also a growing constituency of Euro-Canadian Buddhists seriously interested...

To an outside observer, the religious culture of the United States might seem astonishing. For German sociologist Michael Zöller, American Catholicism is more than that; it is a contradiction in terms. With its historical consciousness, emphasis on...

Reframing Pilgrimage argues that sacred travel is just one of the twenty-first century's many forms of cultural mobility. The contributors consider the meanings of pilgrimage in Christian, Mormon, Hindu, Islamic and Sufi traditions, as well as in secular...

Based on extensive fieldwork and archival records, this book traces the emergence and flourishing of madrasas and the myriad ways in which they impact upon local Muslim communities, especially in West Bengal. It also addresses issues of identity,...

This book shows that widespread resacralisation has been taking place, which is producing new ways of perceiving God and the divine. The last century has seen unmistakable changes in religious practices and the concept of spirituality right across the...

This book explores issues of cultural tension that affect Muslim and Christian interaction within the Central Asian context. It looks at the ways that Christians have interacted with Central Asian Muslims in the past, and discusses what might need to be...

This is the first book in English to examine the Mizrahi Jews (Jews from the Muslim world) in Israel, focussing in particular on social and political movements such as the Black Panthers and SHAS. The book analyses the ongoing cultural encounter between...

The Tarikhnamah is a history of the world and the oldest surviving work of Persian prose. This book examines it as a political and cultural document and why it became such an influential work in the Islamic world.

The subject of anti-Semitism, not long ago thought to be a dead issue, has been revised due to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Maccoby traces the now topical discussion of the origins of Anti-Semitism, and especially its...

This book focuses on the complex network of relationships between the poet, Uri Zvi Grinberg, and the Labor Movement in Mandate Palestine from 1923-1937.

Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic and historical sources, Havatzelet Yahel offers an engaging and sometimes surprising history of Israel's policy toward Bedouin tribalism in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The study opens with a detailed look at...

An estimated forty thousand Jews were murdered during the Russian Civil War between 1918 and 1922. As the Dust of the Earth examines the Yiddish and Russian literary response to the violence (pogroms) and the relief effort, exploring both the poetry of...

Why are there four Gospels, each apparently written for a different purpose? Why did certain writers use a letter-like form for what seems to be essentially a theological treatise? Why is there no New Testament gospel consisting entirely of the sayings...

Nearly two million Jewish men, women, and children emigrated from Eastern Europe between 1882 and 1924 and settled in, or passed through, the Lower East Side of New York City. Sanford Sternlicht tells of his own childhood in this vibrant neighborhood and...

An examination of how Yiddish writers, from Mendele Moycher Sforim to Der Nister to the famed Sholem Aleichem, used motifs of travel to express their complicated relationship with modernization.

A rich ethnography of present-day Iranian seminarian women, revealing the complex ways that they create and define their intellectual and political connections to the Islamic republic.

Major social changes, especially as a result the more multicultural nature of society, have raised important issues about the teaching of religion and the rational basis of different religious faiths. Challenges for Religious Education addresses and...

First published in 1979, this book makes a detailed study of Rastafarianism. It traces the expansion of Rastafarian culture from its origins and development in Jamaica through to the growth of Rastafarian life in Britain. It looks at Rastafarian culture...

First published in 1980, this book presents a study of knowledge and the patterns of social and scientific thought. Keith Dixon argues that traditional and contemporary formulations of the sociology of knowledge involve a series of fallacies, and the...

Islamism in Egypt is more diversified in terms of its sociology and ideology than is usually assumed. Through linguistic analysis of Islamist rhetoric, this book sheds light upon attitudes towards other Muslims, religious authority and secular society...

The argument presented in this book is that the recent 'spiritual' trajectory of Roy Bhaskar's work, upon which he first embarked with the publication of his From East to West, undermines the fundamental achievements of his earlier work. The problem with...

A survey of the various ways--often unrecognized and overlooked--whereby Christianity has impacted the world, making the world a better place and enriching our everyday living. Formerly titled Under the Influence.

Known in Pennsylvania Dutch as Brauche or Braucherei, the folk-healing practice of powwowing was thought to draw the power of God to heal all manner of physical and spiritual ills. Based on seven years of fieldwork and interviews, David Kriebel’s...

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion draws on the expertise of an international team of scholars providing both an entry point into the sociological study and understanding of religion and an in-depth survey into its changing forms and...

Anti-Semitism remains a pernicious form of ethnic and religious intolerance and an assault on the fundamentals of human dignity and human rights. Exploring the history of anti-Semitism and providing the first comprehensive examination of the new rampant...

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, ... and Religion

The collection provides insights on developments in post-traditional religiosity (especially 'New Age' and 'Neo-Paganism') through studies of rave's Gnostic narratives of ascensionism and re-enchantment, explorations of the embodied spirituality and...

This book dispels the widely-held view that paganism survived in Russia alongside Orthodox Christianity, demonstrating that 'double belief', dvoeverie, is in fact an academic myth. Scholars, citing the medieval origins of the term, have often portrayed...

Although over eighty percent of the country is Muslim, Indonesia is marked by an extraordinary diversity in language, ancestry, culture, religion and ways of life. This book focuses on the Christian Dani of West Papua, providing a social and ethnographic...

There is an increasing interest in religion and belief and the diverse forms these take in the contemporary world. This timely book provides a unique analysis of these issues through a discussion of the work of Marx and Weber. Taking Max Weber's...

Works on Jewish humor and Jewish jokes abound today, but what formed the basis for our contemporary notions of Jewish jokes? How and when did these perceptions develop? In this groundbreaking study and translation, noted humor and folklore scholar...

To the honorable heads of state, heads of government, kings, emperors, distinguished religious leaders, intellectuals and scientists; I am disclosing valuable information concerning the future. It is the age of science and the era of utmost improvement...

The images of women in chadors or burqas as contrasted with images of belly dancers which circulate today as representations of Muslim/Middle Eastern women do not fluctuate from the images propagated by Orientalist paintings and colonial photographs...

Winner of the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of ReligionThe Emerging Church Movement (ECM) is a creative, entrepreneurial religious movement that strives to achieve social legitimacy and spiritual vitality by actively...

Religion and American Culture challenges the religion's traditional emphasis on older European, American, male, middle-class, Protestant, northeastern narratives concerned primarily with churches and theology. Breaking through the field with...

In this book David Martin brings together a coherent summary of his many years of ground-breaking academic work on the sociology of religion. Covering key and contentious areas from the last half century such as secularisation, religion and violence and...